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Research & development, as share of national and state GDP:
With a bit less than a quarter of global GDP, the United States accounts for about one-third of the world's spending on scientific research and development. America's $312 billion in R&D for 2004 (the latest figure published by the National Science Foundation, combining government, non-profit and industry research spending) nearly doubles the figure for second-ranked Japan, and outdoes all 27 EU members combined. Relative to GDP, though, the United States ranks only sixth in the world. Israel is the world's top researcher, devoting a bit less than 5 percent of GDP to R&D. Sweden, Finland, and Iceland come next; Japan and South Korea sandwich the United States in fifth and seventh place. The EU and the big developing countries are a bit further back.
If American states were individual countries, though, two would outdo all independent countries. Massachusetts' 5.26 percent of state GDP would place it ahead of both Israel and Sweden; New Mexico's 8.7 percent, reflecting the massive federal investment in the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, would have no rival at all. Adding Maryland's 4.8 percent, and the 4.7 percent figures for Michigan and Washington, U.S. states would be five of the world's six top researchers.
More on states, science, and politics -- The five states with the lowest R&D intensities are Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nevada at 0.7 percent, South Dakota at 0.6 percent, and Wyoming at 0.5 percent. The comparable countries are mid-to-upper-income developing countries, such as Malaysia, Mexico, Argentina, and Turkey, along with lower-income EU members like Bulgaria and Slovakia. Florida is the laggard among big states, spending just under 1 percent of GDP on research and ranking 44th in the United States. (Interesting side note: research spending seems to correlate closely with politics. Nine of America's 10 most research-intensive states, and 16 of the top 20, voted Democratic in both the 2004 and 2000 presidential elections; 17 of the bottom 20 voted Republican in 2004, and 16 in 2000.) National and state R&D data from the National Science Foundation:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf06327/tables.htm
Where does the money come from? As of 2004, the federal government was financing 30 percent of American R&D. Two-thirds of this goes to defense and space; health and life sciences place second; agriculture, environment, natural resources, energy etc. divide up the rest. Private-sector sources account for most of the remaining 70 percent of research: 23 percent from IT businesses, 15 percent from pharmaceutical firms, and the rest spread around many different fields. The state and local-government share is small but growing -- American states and cities invested more than $2.8 billion in 2004 in university research, which is a 29 percent increase since 2000.
The OECD has international comparisons:
http://www.oecd.org/statsportal/
0,2639,en_2825_293564_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
And trends in 2006:
http://www.oecd.org/document/62/
0,2340,en_2649_34273_37675902
_1_1_1_1,00.html#highlights
The UN's 2006 Human Development Report ranks R&D intensity by country:
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/
indicators/128.html
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico:
http://www.lanl.gov/
The National Institutes of Health in Maryland:
http://www.nih.gov/
The Washington Technology Center, a 24-year-old state project offering research grants to support local research on nanotechnology, energy and other areas:
http://www.watechcenter.org/
Science and math page for New Mexico's Department of Public Education:
http://sde.state.nm.us/div/math_science/index.html
Israel's Ministry of Science, Culture & Sport:
http://www.most.gov.il/English/
